MedicCook
09-13-2006, 11:38 PM
Accused cop-killer charged in jail escape
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/09/13/trooper.shot.ap/vert.bucky.ap.jpg
BUFFALO, New York (AP) -- Ralph "Buck" Phillips, accused of killing a trooper and wounding two others during more than five months on the lam, was charged Wednesday in a jail escape that preceded one of the largest manhunts in state history.
Phillips was arraigned via video conference in state Supreme Court in Buffalo from Chemung County, where he is being jailed on charges of attempted murder of a trooper.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf to charges of first-degree escape and third-degree criminal mischief, Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark said.
Phillips is accused of escaping from the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden on April 2 by using a can opener to make a 2-by-2-foot hole in a metal roof. A career thief who has spent 24 of his 44 years behind bars, he had been jailed on a parole violation.
After escaping, authorities allege, Phillips zigzagged across western New York state and into Pennsylvania, stealing vehicles, raiding unattended homes and hunting cabins and receiving help from friends and relatives to stay a step ahead of police.
He is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a state trooper near Elmira in June, and is suspected of shooting two more troopers August 31 in Chautauqua County as they staked out the home of a former girlfriend. Trooper Joseph Longobardo died three days later.
Phillips was captured just across the Pennsylvania border on Friday.
If convicted of escape as a persistent felony offender, Phillips could face a sentence of 15 years to life. Chautauqua County prosecutors may charge Phillips with aggravated murder, a count that carries a penalty of life without parole.
A state commission that reviewed the escape issued a scathing report in August, concluding that the facility was overcrowded and understaffed and that several lapses in protocol enabled Phillips to get away.
Phillips triggered an alarm during the escape, according to the report, but a guard turned it off without notifying an officer assigned to the prison's perimeter. That guard was fired, Brian Doyle, the Erie County sheriff's chief of administrative services, said Wednesday.
The perimeter officer may not have heard a warning anyway, the report said, because he had left his post to use the restroom.
Doyle said 40 people have been added to the staff at the prison since the escape, but he blamed the jailbreak on human error, saying the alarm worked.
The report, however, said the system's alarm system was not properly maintained, a fact that is "known to operators and may well color their responses to alarms."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/13/trooper.shot.ap/index.html
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/09/13/trooper.shot.ap/vert.bucky.ap.jpg
BUFFALO, New York (AP) -- Ralph "Buck" Phillips, accused of killing a trooper and wounding two others during more than five months on the lam, was charged Wednesday in a jail escape that preceded one of the largest manhunts in state history.
Phillips was arraigned via video conference in state Supreme Court in Buffalo from Chemung County, where he is being jailed on charges of attempted murder of a trooper.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf to charges of first-degree escape and third-degree criminal mischief, Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark said.
Phillips is accused of escaping from the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden on April 2 by using a can opener to make a 2-by-2-foot hole in a metal roof. A career thief who has spent 24 of his 44 years behind bars, he had been jailed on a parole violation.
After escaping, authorities allege, Phillips zigzagged across western New York state and into Pennsylvania, stealing vehicles, raiding unattended homes and hunting cabins and receiving help from friends and relatives to stay a step ahead of police.
He is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a state trooper near Elmira in June, and is suspected of shooting two more troopers August 31 in Chautauqua County as they staked out the home of a former girlfriend. Trooper Joseph Longobardo died three days later.
Phillips was captured just across the Pennsylvania border on Friday.
If convicted of escape as a persistent felony offender, Phillips could face a sentence of 15 years to life. Chautauqua County prosecutors may charge Phillips with aggravated murder, a count that carries a penalty of life without parole.
A state commission that reviewed the escape issued a scathing report in August, concluding that the facility was overcrowded and understaffed and that several lapses in protocol enabled Phillips to get away.
Phillips triggered an alarm during the escape, according to the report, but a guard turned it off without notifying an officer assigned to the prison's perimeter. That guard was fired, Brian Doyle, the Erie County sheriff's chief of administrative services, said Wednesday.
The perimeter officer may not have heard a warning anyway, the report said, because he had left his post to use the restroom.
Doyle said 40 people have been added to the staff at the prison since the escape, but he blamed the jailbreak on human error, saying the alarm worked.
The report, however, said the system's alarm system was not properly maintained, a fact that is "known to operators and may well color their responses to alarms."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/13/trooper.shot.ap/index.html